Drone Kills a Pakistani Militant Behind Attacks on U.S. Forces

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An American drone strike killed a top Pakistani militant commander in a northwestern tribal region, security officials said Thursday. The death of the commander, Maulvi Nazir, was seen as a serious blow to Taliban fighters who attack United States and allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

The drone strike took place on Wednesday night and targeted Mr. Nazir’s vehicle in the Angoor Adda area in South Waziristan. Five other people were also killed, including one of his aides, officials said.

“He has been killed; it is confirmed,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The vehicle he was traveling in was hit.”

Mr. Nazir was heading from Bermal to Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, when the drone hit the vehicle he was in.

Photo

Maulvi Nazir, shown in 2010, was killed with five others in the Angoor Adda area of Pakistan. He commanded fighters who assaulted Americans and allied troops in Afghanistan.Credit
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud

In a separate drone strike on Thursday morning, at least four people were killed in North Waziristan when a vehicle was targeted. Their identities were not immediately known.

Mr. Nazir, believed to be in his 30s, was based in the western part of the South Waziristan tribal region. He led the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, and his loyalists regularly joined attacks on American forces across the porous border with Afghanistan. Unlike other Taliban factions, Mr. Nazir’s fighters did not attack Pakistani military or government sites, instead focusing on the war in Afghanistan. He was believed to have signed a peace pact with the Pakistani military.

Mr. Nazir was allied with Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a leading warlord in North Waziristan. The two commanders’ nonconfrontational posture toward the Pakistani military often led to their being labeled here as “good Taliban.”

In Washington, American officials said Mr. Nazir’s apparent death could hurt Al Qaeda’s sanctuary in the Pakistani tribal areas.

“Commander Nazir and his men were directly involved in planning and executing cross-border attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and in providing protection for Al Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan,” said one American official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the intelligence matter. “While it is too soon to tell, the death of Nazir, along with some of his deputies, could push his network into disarray, degrading Al Qaeda’s access to South Waziristan as a result.”

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Al Qaeda and Taliban-supported death squads accuse tribesmen of collaborating with the United States, and often force them to confess on video before executing them.

Asad Munir, a former Pakistani Army brigadier and the intelligence chief in Peshawar, said Mr. Nazir’s killing could lead to a spurt in violence.

“A dangerous scenario for the Pakistani military would be the joining of hands of Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir supporters with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” he said.

Mr. Munir said that the area controlled by Mr. Nazir’s forces had been “relatively peaceful” but that his death increased the chances of attacks on military targets.

Mr. Nazir had survived two earlier drone strikes. In November, he survived a suicide attack attributed to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or T.T.P., the Pakistani Taliban, who conduct attacks inside Pakistan. After the suicide attack, he expelled rival Mehsud tribesmen from territory controlled by his fighters.

Mohammad Din, a resident of Wana, said people were widely mourning Mr. Nazir’s killing there. “The main bazaar in Wana was closed for all routine activities,” Mr. Din said in a telephone interview. He said Mr. Nazir opposed polio vaccination in the region but otherwise did not disrupt government projects and cooperated with the local administration.

Some analysts said that militants like Mr. Nazir could be troublesome for the Pakistani military with the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2014.

Arif Rafiq, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, said: “Maulvi Nazir would probably have posed a problem for the Pakistan Army if and when a political settlement is reached in Afghanistan in 2014. But in the interim, the killing of Nazir and his deputies likely hurts the Pakistan Army’s efforts against the T.T.P. in South Waziristan.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 4, 2013, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Drone Kills a Pakistani Militant Behind Attacks on U.S. Forces. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe